


confusion is nothing new

by picturecat



Category: Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Marriage, Misunderstandings, SteveTonyFest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 14:29:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9445556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picturecat/pseuds/picturecat
Summary: There’s a bottle of whiskey on Tony’s worktable. He really kind of wishes there weren’t, but he put it there, so he supposes this is his fault as well.God.What an idiot he’s been.





	

**Author's Note:**

> stevetonyfest 2015 gift for srcgers

There’s a bottle of whiskey on Tony’s worktable. He really kind of wishes there weren’t, but he put it there, so he supposes this is his fault as well.

God.

What an idiot he’s been.

To the right of the bottle is a ring box. Black velvet. The container’s not really important, but Tony knows if he looks at the actual damn ring he’s going to end this night by getting trashed and melting the damn thing down into slag.

Tony breathes out slowly, pressing his hand tight over his mouth. The ring is— it’s been here for… well over a month, now. Tony’s been sitting on it, trying to find a way to ask Steve if marriage is something he might want with Tony.

He has his answer now. And a bottle of whiskey. And a useless fucking ring.

“Sir, you have a call from Colonel Rhodes,” JARVIS says.

“I don’t… it’s not a good time, J—“

“Tony?”

Tony stiffens, sits up. “Hey, Rhodes,” he says, as blandly as possible.

“Hey, man,” Rhodey says warmly. “How are you?”

Tony grimaces and swallows, throat tight. “I’m, uh,” he starts, and his throat sticks.

“Tony?” Rhodey asks, concerned now. “Are you alright?“

“I’m… uh. I could be better,” Tony says tightly.

“What happened?” Rhodey demands. He sounds combative, which, admittedly, warms Tony somewhat. He almost smiles, even.

But not quite.

“It’s not really— it’s my own fault,” he prevaricates, and Rhodey snorts.

“I’ll be the judge of that, I think. Not that it’s not entirely possible,” Rhodey adds, and Tony can hear him grinning, "but you’re not exactly an objective source.”

“It’s—“ Tony starts, and his throat sticks again. He clears it. “It’s Steve,” he says finally.

“Uh oh,” Rhodey says. “Is Captain America mad at you again?”

“No, Rhodey, come on,” Tony sighs, scrubbing at his forehead.

“Sorry, man,” Rhodey says, sounding serious now. “What happened?”

“He…” Tony starts. “He just— he doesn’t want to marry me.“

“Holy shit,” Rhodey says, shocked. “Did he turn you down?”

“No,” Tony says quickly, because he doesn’t want Steve to get murdered. "No. I just overheard this conversation— someone asked him if we’d considered getting married, and, well. Ha. No. He hadn’t.”

Rhodey pauses. “But that just sounds like … he hasn’t thought about it, right? Maybe he—“

“You didn’t hear the way he said no,” Tony says, and it’s hard, it’s hard to talk around this hollow gaping thing in his throat. “He, uh. He really meant it.”

Quiet. “Are you okay?” Rhodey asks cautiously.

“I should have talked to him about it before I bought the ring, right?” Tony blurts. "At least then I wouldn’t feel so—“

Stupid, he doesn’t say, but he can taste its bitterness at the back of his throat.

”It’s not your fault, Tony. There’s no manual for these things.”

“That would make it easier on me, wouldn’t it?” Tony says, mouth twisted.

“Yeah, you and literally everyone else on the planet,” Rhodey says seriously.

Tony stares at the little box, eyes burning. There’s this pressure, all in his head and his chest and his throat, and Tony tries to fight it back, but it builds, and builds, and it breaks him.

“He doesn’t want to marry me,” Tony blurts, and his voice breaks over the last syllable.

“You should talk to him about this,” Rhodey says gently.

Tony closes his eyes. “It was a stupid idea anyway,” he says, and slides the ring box into the trash.

 

Tony sleeps in the workshop— he curls up on the couch and closes his eyes, and wakes up with a comforter tucked around his shoulders and feet.

He immediately wants to be asleep again. His limbs and head are heavy and numb, and when he sits up it rouses a yawning chasm inside his chest.  

“Time,” he croaks, and JARVIS responds immediately.

“It is 6:33 AM, sir,” he says, and Tony may just be projecting, but he thinks JARVIS sounds more subdued than normal.

“Tell Pep I’m not coming into the early meetings. I’ll make the 12:30, just make my excuses for the others,” Tony says.

“Very well, sir,” JARVIS agrees.

Tony pulls the blanket back over his shoulders, leaning back against the couch and staring at the far wall.

Dummy probably brought the blanket over to the couch. The blanket is kept in the corner of the workshop, from previous times when Tony’s fallen asleep down here. It’s completely plausible that Dummy might have dragged the blanket over to the couch.

Never mind that Steve usually does it.

“Sir, you have a call from Miss Potts,” JARVIS says.

“Ignore,” Tony replies, and drags himself to his feet, pulling the blanket with him. Even with it draped over his shoulders, he feels shiveringly cold.

JARVIS pauses. “She is very insistent, sir.”

“Ignore,” Tony barks. He doesn’t want to talk to Pepper right now. She’ll know immediately that something is wrong. And although their boundaries have always been fuzzy, Tony’s pretty sure that if there’s a line anywhere, it’s right around ‘complaining to your ex about your new lover not wanting to marry you.’

…God, why doesn’t Steve want to marry him? What has he been doing wrong? He thinks… he supposes it’s been going well. They love each other. Steve loves him.

Well. Tony thinks he does.

Steve certainly says so often enough— or, at least, he had, Tony realizes. For the past two weeks or so, not as much, but Tony thought— they’ve been busy. Just because they’ve been too busy to verbally confirm that they still love each other doesn’t mean that they don’t. Does it?

Tony feels a sudden chill. The blanket pools around his feet on the workshop floor.

He leaves it there, taking several long strides to the trash can, and fishes the ring box out. He drops it onto a worktable.

God, he’s been so stupid. He should never have bought that damn ring— just because Steve’s stayed with him this long doesn’t mean he wants to stay forever.

Face burning, Tony grabs a blowtorch and flips the box open.

The ring winks at him promisingly as he lights the torch, and Tony does his damn best to ignore it.

Then he picks up the ring, setting it delicately on the worktable at a safe distance from the velvet box.

And he stares at it. The blowtorch roars quietly, ready to go, and the ring— the ring looks exactly as it always has.

It’s a simple, thick gold band, embedded with one small sapphire and a tiny diamond on either side. He’d agonized over the design, over his desire to get something enormously, disgustingly expensive, and had been so, so proud of himself when he managed to design something meaningful, and frugal enough not to make Steve uneasy. It’s even fairly utilitarian— the gems barely protrude from the band; won’t get caught on anything or be uncomfortable if Steve is caught in a fight with it. He’d been so sure that Steve would love it.

How can he move past this?

Tony wants— he just wants to give Steve everything. Worldly possessions, comfort, the broken, disparate parts of himself. All the love he has to offer.

Knowing Steve doesn’t want that, at least not from Tony—

It’s burning him. It’s drowning him.

He switches off the blowtorch. “I can fix this,” he says raggedly, and is surprised by how desperate he sounds. How tightly he’s clutching at the ring he’d been about to destroy.

Tony can keep this. Steve, with him. He just has to quash that foolish unwanted longing and focus on Steve, on making him feel so loved that he’ll stay. He loves Steve enough to marry him— he has to be capable of doing at least that much.

Steve doesn’t want to marry him, but that’s fine. Tony just has to forget he ever thought he could marry Steve, and keep his mouth shut about his stupid hurt feelings.

He can do it.

 

“Tony!” Pepper hisses when he walks into the office, and Tony looks at her, and then looks again.

She’s furious.

“Uh, what did I do?” he asks, holding up his hands. Not too close to Pepper, though, because she looks like she might bite him.

“Baudelaire and Franklin? The deal that we were supposed to close today? At the meeting that you didn’t show up to?”

Realization dawns, and sinks in Tony’s stomach like a rock. “Shit,” Tony swears, pinching the bridge of his nose. Wow, instant headache.

He takes a deep breath. “Great,” he says. “How pissed are they?”

“More than I am right now, but less than I will be if this falls through,” Pepper says, heels clicking as she leads him into his office.

“Right, got it, thanks,” Tony says sharply, and Pepper eyes him narrowly.

“Why did you call in?” she asks, and there’s a shrewd glint in her eyes. She knows something’s up already. Well, Tony had known she would.

“For reasons,” Tony says. “It doesn’t matter, let’s focus for a second.”

“Tony,” Pepper stops him. “What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Tony says, and he is trying very hard not to snarl. “There’s nothing wrong. I blew off my meetings so I could sleep; I figured they were all pointless anyway. I was wrong, and also exactly as irresponsible as you’ve ever secretly thought I was. Will that be all, Miss Potts?”

Pepper blinks back at him, utterly unimpressed. “No, actually,” she says, deadpan. “We’ve got about 8,000 things to do and zero time for your attitude. And don’t think you’ve gotten out of talking to me about this.”

 

When Tony finally gets back, it’s late evening, and he really would just like to just… collapse somewhere. And stop thinking.

Steve shows up as he’s shrugging out of his business clothes, looking sympathetic and warm in a t-shirt and red Iron Man sweatpants. He whistles lowly.

“Geez, Tony, you look like you’ve been put through the ringer,” he says. Tony looks at Steve, and desperately wants to stretch out all over him and sleep for a year, but, well.

Anyway.

“Something like that,” Tony says noncommittally. “I kinda screwed up at work. So.”

Steve pushes off the doorframe and comes over, gripping Tony on either side of his shoulders and turning him gently so that he can massage Tony’s back. “Sounds fun,” he says, kneading firmly at Tony’s shoulders. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No,” Tony says, staring blankly at the floor. “No, not really.”

He wants—he wants to relax, to forget for a while. To let Steve work the tension out of his muscles, and fall asleep with Steve breathing warm and deep beside him. But, well, that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Tony wanted that—the warmth and sweetness and comfort—with Steve. Forever. He’d thought, maybe, Steve wanted that with him, too, but it turned out it was just another thing he couldn’t have.

“Tony? Are you okay?” Steve asks, and Tony realizes he’s been growing more tense, not less, underneath Steve’s hands.

He swallows and steps away. “Yeah, no, I actually need— I have to go work. Sorry,” he says, making a face. “It’s just a mess right now, and I need to be on damage control, I have to rush out a prototype—“

“It’s okay,” Steve smiles. “Go be a genius. I know how important it is. Just try to come to bed before the sunrise,” he adds fondly, smoothing a thumb under Tony’s eye and pressing another one of those sweet kisses to Tony’s mouth— and that, at least, he can respond easily to; ingrained habit. Muscle memory. The rest— the rest of it, however—

Tony’s smile as he retreats is a little weak, he knows, but hopefully Steve will excuse that as stress as well. And Tony— Tony is just so confused.

He really does have to work— none of that was a lie. But normally, after a day like he’s had, he takes the evening off to spend with Steve, or in his workshop, tinkering.

But right now just being around Steve, being held by him as if everything is normal— it makes him wonder if any of it is real. For a while now, with Steve, he’s had this feeling of safety, of contentment— of something very like forever.

Tony’s never been one for faith, but. He has faith in Steve.

And it’s an ugly feeling, doubt. Ugly, and familiar, and, as ever, consuming.

So he stays in the workshop.

He stays, and fills out paperwork. Edits blueprints for R&D— tinkers until his eyes blur— and he doesn’t imagine Steve, warm in their bed, or the cold, empty spot where Tony usually sleeps.

 

When Steve wakes up, Tony’s side of the bed is empty. He sits up, frowning a little, and stretches until his spine pops.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Did Tony come to bed last night?”

“He did not.”

Steve smooths the covers back on his side of the bed, staring a bit forlornly at Tony’s side. He knows it’s silly— Tony is busy— but, well, Steve likes waking up next to Tony. He’s made it a personal goal to wake up beside Tony as often as he can, because missing it— missing Tony in the mornings always sends everything a little out of sync.

Steve shakes his head. “Let me guess,” he says dryly. “Is he passed out on the couch?”

“Not quite, sir.”

“Slumped over his workbench, then.”

“Indeed,” JARVIS confirms. Steve winces sympathetically.

“Ouch,” he says. “Okay, better go get him. His spine is gonna make him pay for that one.”

When Tony wakes up, it’s to a vicious crick in his neck and the familiar sensation of Steve’s hand stroking up and down his spine. For a moment, he forgets— he lets Steve ease him to his feet and pull him into his arms, tucks his face against Steve’s neck and sighs as Steve starts massaging his neck.

Then he remembers the ring, shoved hastily into a box of washers when he could no longer stand to look at it.

He tenses immediately.

Steve hisses out a little breath. “You’re too tense, Tony,” he murmurs. “You have got to stop doing this to yourself.”

Tony twitches involuntarily as Steve digs his thumb into a particularly tender spot, and Steve gentles his movements immediately, soothing at the area and working on it more slowly.

Tony keeps his head tucked into Steve’s shoulder— his expression could have anything on it right now. And Steve is so gentle with his sore back. Tony just clings to him, circles his arms around Steve’s hips and leans into him.

“I love you,” he mumbles— can’t keep it in— and his heart bobs into his throat, because what if Steve… what if Steve doesn’t say it back?

Steve’s hands falter in their movements.

“I love you too, Tony,” Steve says softly, and pulls away. Tony quickly schools his face into something drowsy and neutral, and Steve’s gaze flicks over Tony’s face, scrutinizing.

“Are you okay?” he asks finally.

Tony quirks a little smile and leans in to kiss Steve. He can be okay. He’ll pawn off the ring and put that silly little dream on the shelf, and he’ll keep Steve for as long as he can.

He pulls away and Steve leans back in, pressing a tiny kiss to the corner of Tony’s mouth. “That’s not an answer,” he hums, but he’s smiling.

“Haven’t had coffee,” Tony grumbles, and doesn’t have to fake the roughness of his voice.

“Ah. That explains it,” Steve grins. “Come on. Let’s get some caffeine in you.”

 

“Hey,” Steve says, trotting into the kitchen, still scrubbing the back of his head with a towel. Natasha waves her spoon at him in greeting, still chewing on a mouthful of Fruit Loops.

“I like your barrettes,” Steve grins, pulling open the fridge. He grabs the orange juice and a carton of eggs, and then, on second thought, a package of bacon as well.

“Thanks,“ Natasha says. “They’re Hello Kitty.” Also pink, and glittery. Steve’s honestly not sure if they’re some sort of gag gift from Clint, or something that Natasha picked out for herself.

“Do you want bacon?” Steve asks, deciding it’s not important.

“Absolutely,” Natasha says.

“How much?” Steve asks.

“All of it,” Natasha replies, standing, and dumps her cereal bowl in the sink. Steve cracks an egg.

Steve hears the fridge open and close behind him, and then the cap coming off the milk carton.

“Romanoff, if you’re drinking out of the milk carton when I turn around—“

“I can never decide if you sound more like a drill sergeant or someone’s mother when you use that voice,” Natasha complains.

Steve turns to glare at her.

She smirks at him, a milk mustache on her upper lip, and Steve rolls his eyes.

Steve turns back to his cooking as Natasha takes a seat, and stares at the sizzling bacon. “Do you think—“ he starts, and stops, suddenly unaccountably frustrated.

“Do I think what?” Natasha asks, and he can hear the quirk of her eyebrow in her voice.

Steve shakes his head and slides the frying pan off the stove. He forks five pieces of bacon into a napkin for Natasha, then dumps the rest on his plate and slides into the seat across from her.

“Do you think there’s something going on with Tony?” he asks finally.

Natasha tilts her head, a little strip of bacon sticking out of her mouth. Her eyes are narrow and sharp.

Steve makes a face at her. “I just mean— I’m not sure what I mean, exactly. But you— as someone who’s spied on him, or just as his friend, maybe—“

“Do you think something’s going on with Tony?” Natasha says.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know,” Steve frowns, glaring at his bacon. “It’s not that he’s been— he seems a little off, sometimes, but I just… have a feeling.”

Natasha hums. “Your gut probably knows Tony better than I ever have,” she says. “If you think something’s wrong, it probably is.”

 

After that, Steve can’t… stop noticing. Everything seems mostly fine, at first glance, but the more he watches…

Tony’s stopped touching him. He leans into Steve’s touches as readily as he always does, will still cuddle him, still kiss him, but only if Steve is the one who initiates. Steve even notices him, a few times, reach out to snag Steve’s hand in his, or begin to sway into Steve’s side— but then, inexplicably, he pulls back.

Steve is more bothered by that than he lets on.

And he’s been noticing this for a while, but… Tony is exhausted. All the time. Steve ambushes Tony with multivitamins several times, because he’s so pale he almost looks—

He looks sick.

There’s a little curl of fear in Steve over that, because what if— what if Tony is sick? What if it’s something bad? Certainly Tony would tell him if it was something… well, if it was serious.

Right?

But then he catches Tony’s expression, sometimes, never for more than a second, but— the look on his face is so despairing that it’s ingrained in Steve’s memory.

And he thinks, well, maybe Tony wouldn’t tell him, if he thought he could stop Steve from worrying. If he thought Steve shouldn’t worry.

And after all, with all the time Tony’s been spending at SI, why would Steve ever stop to wonder if maybe some of those meetings were doctor’s appointments?

 

Steve catches Tony that night, in their bedroom after he’s stripped out of his suit, so wound up that he’s nearly vibrating.

“Tony,” Steve says, and Tony turns toward him. His eyes are tired.

Steve reels him in, and Tony lets him, lets Steve tuck his arms around Tony and lean against his shoulder, tilting their heads together.

Steve’s eyes slide closed and he breathes in, deeply, catching the familiar scent of Tony’s cologne, and skin, and a hint of sweat.

Steve moves a little so that he can kiss Tony’s jaw, feeling the faintest rasp of stubble against his lips. Tony sighs a little, but he hasn’t— he’s still so tense, he hasn’t relaxed at all in Steve’s embrace, and that, honestly, stings.

Steve pulls away.

“Tony,” he says, smoothing his palms down Tony’s shoulders. “You’re not… sick, are you?”

Tony stares at him blankly. “What do you mean?”

“Obviously you’re— you don’t have a cold or anything,” Steve says, inhaling shakily. “What I mean is, are you really sick, bad sick, and keeping it from me because you think—“

“Steve, what?” Tony snaps. “No I’m not— sick, or bad sick, or whatever else, I’m— I know I don’t have the greatest track record with that kind of thing, but I wouldn’t keep that from you. Why would you even think that?”

“I don’t like these bags under your eyes,” Steve says, frowning. “And you look… you look sad. Sometimes. I worry—“

“Don’t. Don’t worry about me, everything’s—“

“I can’t help it. I love you, Tony, of course I’m going to worry—“

“There’s nothing to worry about, it’s just work stuff—“

“Is it though? Usually if it’s just work you try to leave that at the office.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you need me to stop showing stress in your vicinity? I’ll get right on that—“

“Don’t— you’re deliberately misunderstanding me, I just want—“

“Just want what?” Tony shouts. “Do you even fucking know, because I sure as hell don’t!”

“Tony, what are you talking about?”

“I don’t—“ Tony stops and takes a deep breath, hand pressed tight over his eyes, and he looks— too-thin. Defeated.

“Whatever it is— please talk to me, Tony,” Steve says, circling his hand around Tony’s wrist. He smooths his thumb over the bony ridge there. “We can face it together.”

Tony pulls his hand away.

“Do you even want to be here?” Tony says harshly, not looking at Steve.

“What?” Steve says dumbly.

“With me,” Tony clarifies, voice ragged. “Because I can’t— I don’t know. I can’t tell if I’m only seeing what I want to, and it’s making me…” He takes a deep breath, and his face scrunches up, falls into that miserable expression Steve can’t forget. “I can’t do this anymore, Steve. I’m just… I’m tired.”

“Tony, do what?” Steve asks, his heart going too-fast in his chest. “Do you not want to be with me anymore? Because I have never wanted to be anywhere else when I’m with you, I—“ Steve’s face is flaming, ears red hot, but he has to say this. He can’t let Tony think he’s anything less than sincere. “Tony, I am so in love with you. When I’m at your side, I feel like the person I was meant to be. Together, me and you— we’re something more than what we were built to be.”

Tony smiles— a brittle thing. Steve hates it.

“But you don’t want to marry me,” Tony says.

“What?” Steve says again.

“And that’s fine, that’s… your prerogative,” Tony continues, but he looks so pained as he says it that Steve can’t help but consider it a blatant lie. “I’m just… I don’t understand. What you want,” he adds, looking lost.

        “Why on earth do you think I don’t want to marry you?” Steve asks, dumbfounded. Maybe Tony accidentally had this conversation with a Skrull that looked like Steve.

And Tony, finally, looks directly at him. “I heard you say it!” he bites out. “At the charity gala! When you were talking to Senator Guavez’s daughter, and she asked—“

        “If we’d thought about getting married,” Steve finishes, realization dawning. “And I—“

“And you said—“ Tony grimaces, shaking his head. “Well. You know what you said.”

“Tony,” Steve says carefully. “How much of that did you hear, exactly?”

        Tony’s face shutters. “I heard you say you couldn’t possibly marry me,” he says flatly. “And then I, uh. Left.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, quirking a stiff little smile. “I said I couldn’t possibly marry you. I wouldn’t even consider it.”

Tony nods stiffly, a sour turn to his lips.

“It wouldn’t be right,” Steve adds softly. “Until marriage equality is granted all across America. It’s not fair that we should have that right because of sheer dumb geographic luck, while this country refuses to recognize other marriages like, uh. Like ours. Would be.”

It’s almost exactly what he’d said to Rona Guavez, except for the hesitation at the end, but Steve somehow doubts that Tony had heard any of it.

Judging by the wide-eyed look he’s getting now, anyway.

Tony’s jaw works. “So you,” he says brokenly. “Um. Oh,” he swallows. “Oh.“

“So is this what you’ve been stewing over all this time?” Steve asks, feeling a swell of hope. “Not that it wasn’t a legitimate reason to be upset, because it was, but I was afraid you secretly had brain cancer.”

“It might have been,” Tony hedges, and flushes a little. “It wasn’t brain cancer, anyway. So you’re really not getting married until after the federal government recognizes same-sex marriage?”

Steve shrugs.

“That could take forever!”

“It’s what’s right,” Steve says. “For me, anyway.”

“But you—“ Tony hesitates. “But you would? Theoretically? Marry me, I mean.”

“Was that a proposal?” Steve laughs, raising his eyebrows.

“No.” Tony says fervently, and he laughs, eyes wide and wondering and, maybe, a little wet. “Don’t you dare respond to that, I am wearing sweatpants—“

Steve catches one of Tony’s flailing hands and pulls it over his heart. “I wouldn’t be averse to a long engagement,” he says, smiling, and Tony loops his arm around Steve’s neck and kisses him hard.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "time after time" because I happened to be listening to it when I was posting this and it kind of fit


End file.
